Windows 7: right-click, delete, does NOT cause confirmation dialog box

I have since added an old IDE drive to my Windows 7 PC. When I right-click a file to delete it, on the right-click context popup menu, there is a little blue/yellow shield next to delete and rename. This shield is NOT present on the SATA Windows 7 drive.

So, I read and find that if you right-click Recycling Bin, there's an option to prompt the delete confirmation dialog. It was already checked. But, the Bin had stuff in it so I emptied it.

Now when I right-click on the IDE drive, it still has the little blue/yellow but at least I get the delete confirmation prompt.

This is likely the first time I've delete something from the IDE drive AND emptied the Recycling bin.\

I assume the shield has something to dow with security/permissions for the drive itself. What might I check or modify? Or, just leave the IDE drive as with the shield?

Seems this is permissions-related.

On my Windows 7 C and D hard drive partitions (normal "delete confirmation popup" as desired), right-click on drive, properties, then Security tab, it shows as group/user names:

Authenticated Users
SYSTEM
Administrators
Users

Click on ADVANCED and OWNER tab shows TrustedInstaller owns the C and SYSTEM owns D Windows 7 partitions.




The old transplanted (IDE) XP hard drive shows for group/user names:

Everyone
Creator/Owner
SYSTEM
Administrators
Users

Advanced -> Owner shows Administrator as owner.


Should I make the XP E and F partitions the same as the C and D?

NTFS security/permissions. NTFS uses Security Identifiers (those S-1-X-xx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx..... things).

All files and folders on my transplanted (originally hard drive was on my old XP machine) have some S-1-x-xxxxx as the OWNER. To view this OWNER, right-click any folder/file, click on properties (context menu), then on the SECURITY tab in applet, and then on ADVANCED tile and then on the OWNER tab.

I see a S-1-x-... owner there. The reason, I assume, that Windows is displaying it that way as it's an unknown entity. The rest of the "users" on my machine, AUTHENTICATED USERS, ADMINISTRATOR, SYSTEM are "predefined" to some degree and are transportable from machine to machine. This S-1-x-.... is likely a MACHINE-DEPENDENT SID (probably USER=Jim when on old XP machine) that is generated by Windows and somehow has the machine name encoded within the SID string. So, Windows 7 doesn't understand this S-1-x SID and reacts accordingly.

So, when I right-click on one of these files/folders that are owned by this old XP "user" S-1-x-..... to delete it, the context popup window has that little blue/yellow "shield" icon next to the DELETE and RENAME options. Windows is likely doing this because the owner of this file isn't in some magic NTFS security list somewhere and he's notifying me of such. So, it seems Windows won't provide a delete confirmation pop-up window when the owner of the file/folder to be deleted isn't on the NTFS security list (somewhere).

I tested this by COPYING (via the current Windows 7 PC) one of these S-1-x-.... owned files from one partition on this XP hard drive to another partition on the same XP hard drive . If I now right-click the new file/folder, it shows USERS/Jim as the OWNER. If I try to delete it, I do NOT get that little blue/yellow shield, and I DO get the confirmation pop-up dialog box.

I will attempt to change the ownership of the whole XP hard drive (E and F partitions) to USER/Jim (or SYSTEM as the D partition shows in Windows 7 hard drive).

I suggest you make Administrators group as the owner of the files and folders instead of USER/Jim. This will give you more freedom to use the disk.

Don't make the SYSTEM as the owner as the user SYSTEM is used by the operating system and will not give you full freedom to change the permisssions in future. This is also not necessary as this drive is a data drive and not a system drive.

You can make sure to apply same permissions as your windows 7 SATA drive to this old drive. Then you will have no problems.

Windows 7 made the owner of any new files created on that old XP disk USER/Jim.

SYSTEM is the owner of the Windows 7 hard drive D (data only) partition. TrustedInstaller is the owner of the Windows 7 C OS partition.

There has never been any restriction to using the disk or files/folders, but rather the lack of delete confirmation dialog pop-up windows.

New wrinkle.

When I originally tried changing folders (and child box was checked) to User/Jim, the new owner was Jim AND I did get the delete confirmation box if I attemped to delete a file or folder. Just what I wanted.

Today (different day), this no longer works. I'm now back to having that little shield by the DELETE option on the right-click context menu popup. No matter what I do with files or folders now, I won't get the delete confirmation on any file/folder to delete.

Adding Authenticated Users (SID) to the drive and folders now has delete acting exactly as it should. There was no Auth. User on any of my E and F (old XP PATA) drive. I had some special permissions hanging around for USER/Jim. Got everything to match my Windows 7 D partition.

I have 4-5 orphaned (account unknown) S-1-...... SIDs on my PATA drive. Likely from reinstalling Windows 7 giving me new GUIDs for my SIDs and then the old XP PATA drive didn't match up to them any more so many were hanging around.